Champions League Day

Golden Balls is finally coming back home. My dear Becks, welcome back. Just don’t take any free kicks. And when you do, make sure you remember all the good times you had at Old Trafford, and not the time when the cleat magically hit you in the face.

More seriously though, it should be a good game between Milan and United. Second legs are always fiercely contested, although I’m sure Porto would disagree based on yesterday’s bout with Arsenal. Usually, and especially when it comes to United, I have a fairly certain opinion on who is going to win. Today, I’m stumped. The results hang in a very precarious number of factors.

1) Rooney – Sir Alex claims that his star man is fully fit and ready to go. But one must wonder whether a player can really shake of an injury that got aggravated a week ago in the heat of internationals. No doubt Sir Alex did his best to prepare Rooney for this game, but the human body is what it is. Even Rooney, who tends to recover faster than most, can’t be at his absolute best, having trained less than usual do to the injury. But we’ll see.

2) Ronaldinho vs. Rafael – Last time, Ronaldinho tore Rafa a new one. Literally. It was not pleasant to watch, and I felt that young Rafael had already lost have the battle before the game, when he was in awe at the very sight of his legendary compatriot. I know Rafael can do better than what he showed last time, and he needs to actually do it this time.

3) Park – Sir Alex made a decision last match to pull Ji-Sung Park out of his natural position and give him a roaming center midfielder position. Park was clearly told to man mark Pirlo, and that he did. Pirlo was hardly able to get any passes off and was generally ineffective the entire match. The great thing about Ji-Sung Park is that his endurance allows him to hassle the daylights out of an an opponent (like Gattuso of old), and then push back forward immediately with the same zeal and agression. Sir Alex should either retain that tactic this match, or let Park do the same thing on the wing. A journalist was noting that Sir Alex has an invaluable asset in the understanding between Park and Evra, and that may be be worth a try as well. Milan’s aging defense will have a tough time double-marking Rooney, guarding eithter Valencia/Nani, and having to deal with Ji-Sung Park constantly press their offense. And I’m sure either Scholes and Carrick will be lurking around the penalty box for any loose balls that they can pound on.

All in all, it should be fantastic game. I believe that Leonardo made the right tactical decisions last time around, but his players failed to execute. Ronaldinho was flawless, but Huntelaar and Pato were far from it. If they show up to play today, we might have some trouble. The good news is, Vidic will be replacing Evans, and that should be a commanding presence in defense, something we desperately needed against Milan in the first leg.

Darren’s Prediction: 2 – 2. United goes through.